Intelligent gels — An approach to artificial muscles and soft tissue

Abstract

We have been employing polymer gels to create biomimetic motility systems, focusing to their reversible size and shape change, thereby realizing motion by integrating the deformation on a molecular level. Over the past number of years, we have proposed several kinds of artificial soft machines constructed by polymer gels. Examples include Gelooper(gel-looper), gelf(gel golf) [1–6], shape memory gel actuators[7–10], chemical motors[11,12], etc.